Opinion: The brevity of skating careers

[4everchan]

I actually don't think it's the age limit in gymnastics that has led to longer careers because the age limit has been the same since 1997. The only difference is that those who turn 15 in the pre-Olympic year are no longer allowed to compete as seniors in the pre-Olympic year even though they're eligible to compete in the Olympics the next year when they turn 16. I think in many countries the pool of athletes who makes it to the elite level is relatively small, so there aren't as many up-and-comers who make a splash. I also think training methods have improved, like minimizing hard landings. Additionally, some of the more fragile gymnasts only do their biggest skills and compete all-around at worlds and the Olympics, like Rebeca Andrade. Either way, gymnasts tend to stick around longer when there is no one to replace them.

These are very important points. In figure skating, the increase in difficulty is constant and also blamed for injuries (Rika for instance). There is very little way to minimize hard landings is there? Biggest skills : they are necessary almost all the time... though some will keep a 3a only for the LP or in specific competition. I recall Kaetlyn Osmond only performing her full layback positions with Bielmann at certain important competitions. And yup, this is why we have seem in some countries, a bit older skaters, because they are not easily replaced. Look at Loena, she could skate for quite a while and not be threaten in her country (though Nina is coming up stronger and stronger). But in Russia, Japan and Korea, you gotta remain relevant. Thanks for sharing these from gymnastics.

Regarding your first point, I think it's worth mentioning that before the age limit change of 1997, there were very young athletes and more turn around. These rules do take a while to be effective and have an impact in the culture of the sport. I suspect that it is really after Milano that we will see a significant difference in skating.

Finally, when I mentioned gymnastics here it wasn't about rules and longevity but more about the skill based movements (elements, tricks) that are required in gymnastics being much more similar to figure skating then let's say, tennis or track and field.

 

[eppen]

I am only saying this because I feel the data may be more accurate by looking at world championships, year after year, rather than the one in a 4 year event.

Perfect data analyzed in depth would be great, but even I am not inclined to do all that work... Also, looking at the data for the Olympics, there are certain trends to be noted in the long term, for example, lots of teenagers in the 1950s and a series of 20-year olds in the 2000s.

The sample every 4 years reflects skaters active for some years on both sides of the Olympics. The skaters don't change completely for every season, they remain mostly the same with some retiring and some new ones coming along. And because there is so little variation in the Olympics participants, I suspect that calculating the same figures for worlds would produce only more of the same kind of results.

But ofc I did have to try calculating one set for Worlds, year 2000 or the 30 women who qualified for the short program (the QRs went up to 45 participants...). There were 10 skaters who were not in the 1998 or 2002 olympics, and for them the age range went from 15 to 27 and their average age 18,8. The average age for all 30 women was 20,1 and for the medalists 22,3.

1998 Olys av. all 20,3, medalists 17,7
2002 WC av. all 20,1, medalists 22,3
2002 Olys av. all 21,6, medalists 20,0

I had done the medalists in major competitions (Euros, Worlds, Olys, 4CC) since 1947 before and that list of average ages is very similar to what goes on in the Olympics. (You just gotta take my word for it because putting the table here in an readable format seems to be far too complicated a task for this hour.)

 

[Mathman]

It always seemed to me -- just an impression -- that for the world championships the established stars were given consideration over the fresh faces more so than was the case at the Olympics. I don't know if ths is true or just my imagination.

Furthermore, most skaters (especially ladies) have only a very short period when they are at their absolute peak. If that peak happens dutring an Olympic year they're in like Flynn. If they peak in the middle of an Olympic cycle, that's when the roll of the dice favors the younger challenger who might be on the upswing. Medvedeva being overtaken by Zagitova in 2018 is a good example.

 

[Mathman]

2018 Oympics Zagitova age 15
2017 Worlds Medvedeva age 17

2014 Olympics Sotnikova age 17
2013 Wolds Kim age 22

2006 Olympics Arakawa age 24 (the oldest ladies' Olympic champion since 1920)
2005 worlds Slutskaya age 26 (Irina’s birthday is in February, Shizuka's is in December ) )

2002 Olympics Hughes age 16
2001 Worlds Kwan age 20

[Shcherbakova in 2022 and Kim in 2010 also won the previous year’s Worlds.]

 

[gkelly]

It always seemed to me -- just an impression -- that for the world championships the established stars were given consideration over the fresh faces more so than was the case at the Olympics. I don't know if ths is true or just my imagination.

One theory is that the older skaters who have had some success at Worlds are aiming to win the Olympics with a lot of pressure going in as favorites with outside expectations, and perhaps with internal pressure to cap their careers with what they see as the ultimate crown. And then the pressure (or the years of wear and tear on their bodies) gets to them and they don't skate their best at the big event.

A newcomer who has recently started having world-level success may know that winning the Olympics is a possibility and really want it as well, but there's less pressure because there's less to lose -- it would be easier for the younger skater to envision continuing on to the following Olympics, and because the outside expectations are probably lower -- even for reigning world champs who may not be odds-on favorites (Baiul and Lipinski).

We've seen this happen with men as well sometimes, although the younger male winners tend to have been around for more of the preceding Olympic cycle because "younger" in their case tends to mean 19-20 rather than 15-16, so they've had more years of senior eligibility usually building up toward medal contention rather than arriving on the scene already at their athletic peak.

It probably only makes sense to go back to 1992 Olympics for these kinds of trends, because the dynamics in the figures/amateurism era were different.

 

[eppen]

2018 Oympics Zagitova age 15
2017 Worlds Medvedeva age 17

2014 Olympics Sotnikova age 17
2013 Wolds Kim age 22

2006 Olympics Arakawa age 24 (the oldest ladies' Olympic champion since 1920)
2005 worlds Slutskaya age 26 (Irina’s birthday is in February, Shizuka's is in December ) )

2002 Olympics Hughes age 16
2001 Worlds Kwan age 20

[Shcherbakova in 2022 and Kim in 2010 also won the previous year’s Worlds.]

There were 11 Olympics before 1992. 9 times the winner of the Worlds the year before the Olympics was younger than the OGM winner and twice they were the same age (de Leeuw-Hamill 1975,6, Sumners-Witt 1983-4). 8 times the WC and the OGM winner were the same skater (Fratianne-Pötzsch 1979-1980 was the exception).

Starting from 1992, 9 Olympic games and 5 times the OGM winner was older and also the same skater (Yamaguchi 1992, Baiul 1994, Lipinski 1998, Kim 2010, Shcherbakova 2022). 4 times the OGM was younger. Both scenarios are equally likely, I guess...

Just to look at a slightly larger material I did these based on what I have done earlier.

The ages of winners of major competitions in the 1990s

	EC	Age	Worlds	Age	Olys	Age	GPF	Age	4CC	Age
1990-1	Bonaly	17	Yamaguchi	19
1991-2	Bonaly	18	Yamaguchi	20	Yamaguchi	20
1992-3	Bonaly	19	Baiul	15
1993-4	Bonaly	20	Sato	21	Baiul	16
1994-5	Bonaly	21	Chen	18
1995-6	Slutskaya	17	Kwan	15			Kwan	15
1996-7	Slutskaya	18	Lipinski	14			Lipinski	14
1997-8	Butyrskaya	25	Kwan	17	Lipinski	15	Lipinski	15
1998-9	Butyrskaya	26	Butyrskaya	26			Malinina	26	Malinina	26
1999-2000	Slutskaya	21	Kwan	19			Slutskaya	20	Nikodinov	19

Compare these to winners in the 2000s

	EC	Age	Worlds	Age	Olys	Age	GPF	Age	4CC	Age
2000-1	Slutskaya	21	Kwan	19			Slutskaya	20	Suguri	19
2001-2	Butyrskaya	29	Slutskaya	23	Hughes	16	Slutskaya	22	Kirk	17
2002-3	Slutskaya	24	Kwan	22			Cohen	18	Suguri	22
2003-4	Sebestyén	22	Arakawa	22			Suguri	22	Ota	17
2004-5	Slutskaya	25	Slutskaya	25			Slutskaya	25	Suguri	24
2004-5	Slutskaya	26	Meissner	16	Arakawa	24	Asada	15	Taylor	16
2006-7	Kostner	20	Ando	19			Kim	16	Meissner	17
2007-8	Kostner	21	Asada	17			Kim	17	Asada	17
2008-9	Lepistö	20	Kim	18			Asada	18	Kim	18
2009-10	Kostner	23	Asada	19	Kim	19	Kim	19	Asada	19

And the 2010s

	EC	Age	Worlds	Age	Olys	Age	GPF	Age	4CC	Age
2010-1	Meier	25	Ando	23			Czisny	23	Ando	23
2011-2	Kostner	25	Kostner	25			Kostner	24	Wagner	20
2012-3	Kostner	26	Kim	22			Asada	22	Asada	22
2013-4	Lipnitskaya	15	Asada	23	Sotnikova	17	Asada	23	Murakami	19
2014-5	Tuktamysheva	19	Tuktamysheva	19			Tuktamysheva	17	Edmunds	16
2015-6	Medvedeva	16	Medvedeva	16			Medvedeva	16	Miyahara	17
2016-7	Medvedeva	17	Medvedeva	17			Medvedeva	17	Mihara	17
2017-8	Zagitova	15	Osmond	22	Zagitova	15	Zagitova	15	Sakamoto	17
2018-9	Samodurova	16	Zagitova	16			Kihira	16	Kihira	16
2019-20	Kostornaia	16					Kostornaia	16	Kihira	17

The last 3 seasons have gaps, but here:

	EC	Age	Worlds	Age	Olys	Age	GPF	Age	4CC	Age
2020-1			Shcherbakova	16
2021-2	Valieva	15	Sakamoto	21	Shcherbakova	17			Mihara	22
2022-3	Gubanova	20	Sakamoto	22			Mihara	23	Lee	17

It is kind of difficult to draw any definitive conclusions from any of the data except that even the past Olympic cycles have been within seemingly normal variation. If you go all the way down to 1946-7 season in this way and look at the average ages of the winners, then you get
1940s 18,6
1950s 18,4
1960s 19,9
1970s 18,3
1980s 19,4
1990s 19,0
2000s 20,2
2010s 18,9
And the past 3 seasons 19,2

The 2000s was actually the anomalous decade with lots of older winners And the same development continued almost until mid-2010s when there was a sudden drop after the 2013-4 season.

This drop occurred when the Russians started to upgrade the tech content - eg Lipnitskaya had most of her jumps in the second half in 2013-4 and this went on to the extreme with Medvedeva and Zagitova. Trusova introduced the quads in the 2017-8 season in juniors though they were not the route to victory until the 2020s. The first wins with ultra-cs were by Kihira and Kostornaia and they had "only" 3As. Shcherbakova and Valieva (hmm) are the only ones who have won with quads. Valieva also had the whole repertoire, ie 3As and quads. The recent developments can perhaps be explained by mostly Russians girls coming up with more difficult jumping skills every season.

The same has happened also with men starting from the 2015-6 season, but their jumps get developed a bit later and men are also mostly able to keep them for a long time, so they don't come and go so dramatically.

It remains to be seen what the new age eligibility rules will do to women's careers. At the moment it looks like that the ultra-c race has been somewhat halted when it comes to seniors, even in Russia. This means that you can do well with the traditional jump repertoire.

It remains to be seen what happens if/when the Russians are allowed back - will their women try to revive their old jumps? Can they do it? Will some of the girls doing quads and 3As now in novice and junior categories grow up to be a row of 17-year-olds who come to seniors, win everything in one or maybe two seasons and then disappear? At a more general level, will women still continue to skate about 6 seasons when they start seniors at 17? Will they continue to mainly retire at about 21-22 like in the past 70 years?

 

[Mathman]

^ So, basically, there is nothing to see here. My biggest takeaway is that individual dominance by an exceptional talent swamps any statstical trend that we might be searching for.

Europeans: Hey look, the ages of the championions went up by exactly one year for every chanpionship from 1991 to 1995.

1991, Bonaly age 17
1992 Bonaly, age 18
1993, Bonaly, age 19
1994, Bonaly, age 20
1995 Bonaly, age 21

What are the statistical odds of that happening?

 

[4everchan]

^ So, basically, there is nothing to see here. My biggest takeaway is that individual dominance by an exceptional talent swamps any statstical trend that we might be searching for.

Europeans: Hey look, the ages of the championions went up by exactly one year for every chanpionship from 1991 to 1995.

1991, Bonaly age 17
1992 Bonaly, age 18
1993, Bonaly, age 19
1994, Bonaly, age 20
1995 Bonaly, age 21

What are the statistical odds of that happening?

but that's exactly the point isn't it = longevity? One dominant skater with a long career... creating a deeper interest from more casual fans

Just like Canadian Nationals having a Patrick Chan who wins it 10 times in a row (he took a year off)...

Look at tennis... there are one hit wonder stars but the big guns, the ones who play in their 30s, fans are crazy about these folks. (not imagining one bit that women will start skating until they are 30 but then Butyrksaya won worlds at 26 didn't she? )

 

[Mathman]

but that's exactly the point isn't it = longevity? One dominant skater with a long career... creating a deeper interest from more casual fans.

That is why I lament the diminution of professional skating. Kristi Yamaguchi's entire senior singles career comprised only 4 years. Yet she was a household name in the U.S. who contributed immensely to the popularity of figurte skating because of her subsequent 13 years as the guts and glue of the Stars on Ice crew and the winner of many professional competitions back in the days when professional competitions were meaningful.

Surya Bonally had a long and noteworthy (though in some respects somewhat frustrating) amateur career and then went on to be the most popular performer on Champions on Ice for years and years, entertaining thousands while keeping up her technical skills as well as performance values.

 

[4everchan]

That is why I lament the diminution of professional skating. Kristi Yamaguchi's entire senior singles career comprised only 4 years. Yet she was a household name in the U.S. who contributed immensely to the popularity of figurte skating because of her subsequent 13 years as the guts and glue of the Stars on Ice crew and the winner of many professional competitions back in the days when professional competitions were meaningful.

Surya Bonally had a long and noteworthy (though in some respects somewhat frustrating) amateur career and then went on to be the most popular performer on Champions on Ice for years and years, entertaining thousands while keeping up her technical skills as well as performance values..

Yes. but it's like 6.0. It's another era. There will never be pro skating the way it was back then. That's why it's difficult to assess longevity across the century. There a wide range of time periods for the sport.

 

[el henry]

I agree it is impossible to assess longevity for skaters during the pro competition era simply by assessing when they retired from amateur competition.

For a meaningful metric, one would need to assess the length of their professional competition career and add that to the year that they "retired". Unfortunately, there is no equivalent today. Doing Stars on Ice is not the equivalent of the pro competitions, so those years should not be added in.

In any event, without the pro circuit that I will finance once I become a billionaire how do we assist skaters today who want that lengthy career?

 

[Mathman]

In any event, without the pro circuit that I will finance once I become a billionaire how do we assist skaters today who want that lengthy career?

Not only that, but we have not yet established that encouraging long careers at the reletive expense of short meteoric ones is really a boon to skating in general. A few things are without dissent, such as doing everything we (i,e, the ISU) can think of to prevent injuries to ypumg and old alike.

But should the ISU implement rules changes with the express goal of benefitting one group of athletes and disadvantaging another? Or should they say, these are the rules of figure skating competitions (a quad is worth 10 points, etc.) Come one , come all and the devil take the hindmost.

 

[Mathman]

All comes down, doesn't it, to what the ISU and the authorities both international and country want to achieve? And if anyone can work that out, I suggest they are a candidate for Mastermind...

Sometimes I think it's "be careful what you ask for, you might get it."

In the late 1990s when both Olympic eligible and professional skating were flourishing and complementing each other there was a lot of money to be made, at least in the U.S., and the ISU lauched a campaign to take over all aspects of figure skating and impose ISU regulations on everybody. One reason that the ISU gave was that all the cheesefest pseudo-com[petitions (the men against the ladies, USA against the world, etc.) diluted the sport as a serious athletic enterprise and made it look silly.

Plus, there was the brief but lucrative popularity of pro-ams. The ISU decreed that no ISU skater who was still in competition could participate in a pro-am unless the event used the official ISU scoring regimen administered by ISU judges. There were rules like, there had to be at least 5 ISU judges representing at least three different countries, etc. No scoring 1 through 10. If the producer wouldn't agreee, then no $MIchelle Kwan$ for you, Mate. Quite naturally the pros did not want to go up against current Olympians and world champions under the rules for ISU com[petitions, and that was pretty much the end of professional competitions altogether. I think the Japan Open is the only pro-am left.

By the way, the all-time great pro-am was the 1998 World Pro-Am, In ladies Kwan annihilated the field with a full competitive program to Ariane landing 7 triples (the "technical program") followed by perhaps the finest performance of her entire career to East of Eden (the "artistic program"). In men's newly crowned Olympic champion Alexei Yagudin was expected to do the same, and in fact was way ahead after the first program.

But old over-the-hill Kurt Browning ripped out his Clown program and blew the roof off the joint. coming within a whisker of pipping Alexei at the post. Only a missed triple Axel in the earlier program prevented Kurt from winning the whole thing.

 

[icewhite]

Not only that, but we have not yet established that encouraging long careers at the reletive expense of short meteoric ones is really a boon to skating in general. A few things are without dissent, such as doing everything we (i,e, the ISU) can think of to prevent injuries to ypumg and old alike.

But should the ISU implement rules changes with the express goal of benefitting one group of athletes and disadvantaging another? Or should they say, these are the rules of figure skating competitions (a quad is worth 10 points, etc.) Come one , come all and the devil take the hindmost.

Well, if I find the time I will look for some material regarding popularity.
But concerning your second aspect: I don't see it as "benefitting a certain group of athletes" so much as drawing a line where skating become so unhealthy for the body overall that it should not be supported and pushed anymore. Many other sports, at least finally, have put rules in action, especially to protect minors, but also in general young athletes, and to decrease the negative affects their sport brings with them. In many sports there are still ways to go... but for instance football (soccer) has finally implemented rules forbidding to train headers in juniors, triple jump as far as I know has restrictions for kids/teenager training, there are gear restrictions in cycling for juniors...
The rule-giving institutions in a sport have a possibility to guide the sport into a certain direction, and health should not be a non-factor in considerations.
What to really do is indeed the question. But at the moment I do not see any serious discussion about this at the top at all. Neither about maybe devaluing or restricting the number of jumps. Nor about specific restrictions of jumps other than no quads in juniors in the short - but 1 the "no quads for women in the short" rule ridicules that, because it makes it seem really silly and not based on science but prejudice, and 2 that doesn't change much anyway when one quad in the free can still bring you the win. Nor about other ways that could be explored. Because at the moment the importance of jumps in figure skating is just so big that it seems unimaginable to change that. But on the other hand figure skating really is a sport that has gone through massive changes throughout its history - the biggest maybe being the complete erasure of compulsary figures.
I'm not a jump hater. I like them, and I can see that in the sense of "how many people in the world will ever be able to do this even with the hardest training" a quad is much more diffult than a beautiful spin or drawing a perfect loop on the ice. But I wonder if the detrimental effects on the health of the athletes are not too big to go this way much longer. My son has no interest in figure skating (nor talent), but if he did, I would likely feel bad about allowing him to do it (likely push him to do ice dance instead of singles) - and if parents have such thoughts, that is a problematic situation for a sport.

 

[gkelly]

In men's newly crowned Olympic champion Alexei Yagudin was expected to do the same, and in fact was way ahead after the first program.

But old over-the-hill Kurt Browning ripped out his Clown program and blew the roof off the joint. coming within a whisker of pipping Alexei at the post. Only a missed triple Axel in the earlier program prevented Kurt from winning the whole thing.

Alexei Yagudin was not the newly crowned Olympic champion in 1998.

Ilia Kulik won the 1998 Olympics, and that was his last standard ISU-track competition.

Yagudin was 5th at the 1998 Olympics, won his first world title at 1998 Worlds, and continued competing on the eligible track for the next four years, winning gold at the 2002 Olympics and attempting to compete on the Grand Prix in fall of 2002 but withdrawing due to injury.

He was indeed able to compete at and win the 1998 World Pros competition for the same reason that Kwan was able to do so, while also remaining Olympic eligible, as you describe earlier in your post.

 

[Mathman]

..but the "no quads for women in the short" rule ridicules that (the rules for juniors), because it makes it seem really silly and not based on science but prejudice...

I think that this rule for ladies is not based on science or predudice, but rather on the historical idea of what the short program was desighned to accomplish in the first place. It was supposed to provide a list of elements and skills that all of the competitors can do and then the judges decide who did it best. If only a tiny handful of ladies have a quad, this jump cannot be used for this purpose. Top senion men, on the other hand, all have a quad, so OK.

In the free program, on the other hand, you are free to throw in everything and the kitchen sink and if you can do something that no one else can, good for you.

Over the years this distinction between the short and long programs mostly disappeared and now the SP is essentially the same as the LP, only (mercifully?) shorter.

I wonder if the detrimental effects on the health of the athletes are not too big to go this way much longer.

I agree that this is the proper focus for this discussion, and the comparisons to other sports are quite relevant. In little league baseball it is pretty much universally accepted (though there is not an overall organization with regulatory power over all programs and coaches) that you should not allow a young pitcher to train a curve ball until age 13. Otherwise, the child athlete runs the risk of permanent damage to developing elbow and shoulder joints.

Even at the level of gnarled adult macho-men, American football for instance has established protocols about how to deal with concussions (a player who has his bell rung must sit out for a certain length of time even if he says he feels fine), rules about roughing the quarterback were tightened (in the good old days it was universal that ex-quartebacks had to have knee replacement surgery by age 45), etc.

In hockey, when the mandatory helmet rule went into effect in 1979, the players rebelled -- what are we, a bunch of mama's-boy wimps? But the next generation of players accepted it as part of the game. (Helmets for figure skaters, especially in pairs, have been proposed, but never given serious consideration. Too unaesthetic.)

 

[Diana Delafield]

In hockey, when the mandatory helmet rule went into effect in 1979, the players rebelled -- what are we, a bunch of mama's-boy wimps? But the next generation of players accepted it as part of the game. (Helmets for figure skaters, especially in pairs, have been proposed, but never given serious consideration. Too unaesthetic.)

I was asked to privately test out several designs of helmets in a practice session about ten years ago, and the ones then were useless, at least for the women in pairs. In shape, they either cut off my peripheral vision so I couldn't find my partner instantly when I needed to, or they were like little saucers on top of my head which would have protected me fine if I'd been dropped while vertically upside down, but not any other way. And if they were strong enough to be of use, then their weight upset my balance in lifts. Anything light enough to not be a drag, literally, was about the strength of a little hood of stiffened fabric. They may have come up with some new designs since then, but my reviews of those attempts were pretty scathing, as were, I heard, the opinions of a few other Canadian testers.

 

[Diana Delafield]

After I posted about testing helmets for pairs girls, I remembered a few years after that a conversation with an old friend from my gymnastics days at university, now coaching, who told me she'd been asked to test a helmet for gymnasts to use at least in practice, and had heard about the same for divers. Same problems. It's not (just) that they look peculiar but that the extra weight and structure on the head causes more problems and more potential danger than the protection they're supposed to give. We're whirling up, down and sideways constantly, which team sports players don't have to do. (Although freestyle skiers and snowboarders seem to have managed, but they've worn helmets from the start so presumably their elements were invented with helmets involved from the start. Pairs skating would have to be redesigned from the basic elements up to do that, which is an intriguing thought but a huge headache, I'd think, with no wordplay intended!)

 

[Ffc]

is what hurts the sport the most.
That's what I'm thinking more and more often.
Skaters who actually have a "career" with ups and downs, a journey to follow, are so popular. But there just aren't many skaters like that.
To grow the sport the most effective measure would be to try and keep people in the sport for a longer time.

There was a time when skating was more mainstream, and not a fringe sport. We all followed Michele and Katarina for a very long time and both became larger than life and transcended the sport. Any random person would know either star. There were many others too.

I actually feel sorry for many of the skaters today, How could you not feel sorry for Valeava. She will be scarred for life. Passing no judgement on her he

is what hurts the sport the most.
That's what I'm thinking more and more often.
Skaters who actually have a "career" with ups and downs, a journey to follow, are so popular. But there just aren't many skaters like that.
To grow the sport the most effective measure would be to try and keep people in the sport for a longer time.

 

[Mathman]

I actually feel sorry for many of the skaters today, How could you not feel sorry for Valeava.

There is something off-putting about the whole business of creating child stars -- in sports, entertainment, whatever -- and coercing/pressuring/persuading them to perform for the entertainment of adults. It is not surprising that it often does not turn out well.

On the brighter side, Kamila is far from a worst-case scenario. She has opportunities to continue in the sport and to make some money at it, and she retains the affection and support of fans word-wide whatever life brings her.